To Love a Legend
by Dark Empyrean
Summary: A year has passed since Arya departed Westeros. Gendry, Lord of Storm's End, can't stop thinking of the one woman he will ever truly love. As Arya explores new lands, she is nevertheless haunted by memories and feelings she can't explain, and can only run from. But soon the two will be drawn together by cataclysmic events.
1. Chapter 1: Storm's End

Gendry stared out of the narrow window, and fervently wished he was any place else.

Rain lashed the leaded glass, which was banded with metal to make breakage more difficult. Although the winds raged with much more fury than anything he'd ever seen during his childhood In King's Landing, it apparently wasn't much of a storm by Storm's End standards. The heavy wooden storm shutters were wide open, letting in what passed for daylight in this grim, gray world in which he found himself.

The light of five hundred candles danced overhead, illuminating the long wooden table, loaded down with roasted fish and wild game; sweets and stewed vegetables; pastries, pies, and potatoes; ales and liquors and spiced wines; and other food he could only guess at. His stomach growled loudly. The food was one part of his new life at Storm's End he would never get sick of. He'd known too much hunger as a child in the slums, as the bastard child of a stranger. He'd been told he was lucky, growing up, that at least he had a stranger for a father who sometimes sent money for his keep. However, his mother all too often chose ale over feeding her only son, and hunger had been his constant companion during those early, vulnerable years.

And now: he sat in fine but uncomfortable clothes, surrounded by luxury, as people who would have once sneered at him all but bent themselves over to curry his favor. It made him want to laugh, at the capriciousness of his life, at the cruelty of the world and the wonder of his sudden change in fortune. But today, he very much just wanted to eat some of the fine food in front of him, guzzle some ale, and slink back to the chambers he'd claimed from his dead uncle Stannis. But it was not to be. He shifted a bit in his fine linen trousers, and smoothed the fur-lined cloak underneath him, and tried to cheer himself up.

_Look on the bright side, Gendry. She's beautiful and clever. You won't have to worry about stupid heirs. _

"I said, I'd like some wine," a clear, bell-like voice insisted from his right side. The voice was a bit too loud and formal, as if it had been repeating itself. Gendry snapped his fingers, and a servant scrambled forward with a golden pitcher full of the stuff.

"I'm sorry, my lady," Gendry heard himself say. "You must forgive me. I'm distracted by the … storm outside."

"You've been distracted by something, that much is certain," his companion murmured, too softly for anyone's ears but his. Gendry's heart sank, as he realized he was being rude. He turned his full attention to his companion.

She sat perfectly still in her chair, her chin upturned, her dark hair hanging in loose curls threaded through with ribbons of gold. A gold and diamond filigree tiara sat tightly on her brow, matching the diamonds sewn into the golden silk of her gown. Gendry knew the silk must be too thin for the climate at Storm's End, that she had to be cold, but the fabric clung to her full, luscious figure so well that she had so far refused to wear anything else. He tried to be grateful for this, for her ripe body and quick mind. He tried to tell himself he could grow to love her, one day.

He wasn't quite sure he believed himself. At least, not today.

But if he couldn't love her, he could at least practice not being an ass.

"My Lady Martell," he said, rising swiftly and unbuckling the silver and emerald clasp that bound his fur-lined cloak. "Our betrothal is a joyous occasion. I will not tolerate you being cold." He draped the luxurious fabric across her lap with a small bow.

Elaynna Martell accepted his gesture with a smile and a small nod. "Thank you, my lord," she said, clutching the cloak and pulling it over her legs. "I find I could get quite used to your attention, after all," she whispered, leaning forward so her breasts strained against the silk. She favored him with a smile, and he answered her with one of his own, but it felt like a pale ghost of a thing on his face.

He wanted so much more than a witty beauty to warm his bed. He wanted….

_Her._

Intelligence and valor and honor and fierceness and adventure, all wrapped up in the figure of one feral young woman who'd saved an entire kingdom, and taken nothing for herself in return.

She had become a legend, but he knew her as the hesitant young woman he'd taken to his bed: Arya Stark, Slayer of the Night King, Explorer, Adventuress, and, he was coming to suspect, the only woman he would ever love.

He'd been so happy when the Dragon Queen raised him up, making him a lord. He'd lived through intense hunger and need, growing up, but his first thought hadn't been for the riches and security the position would bring him. His first thought had been that now, he'd have something to offer her. A lordship, with an ancestral home to rival Winterfell.

And yet, she'd refused him. Refused the title, the lands. He'd never forget the look in her eyes as she turned him down, and as much as it hurt, as much as it made him ache, he understood, and hungered for her even more.

Arya Stark could never be caged. He'd been a fool to try.

"Perhaps we could retire someplace more private, my lord," Lady Elaynna Martell said, and Gendry realized he'd made her repeat herself once more.

She wasn't Arya, but she was, by all accounts, a smart, sweet girl who seemed to be eager to please him. She was noble and would bring power and might to Storm's End though an alliance. He'd be a fool not to marry her.

"We do have much to discuss, " he acknowledged. Gendry bowed to the lady at his right and reached for the wine glass on the polished table in front of him. He drank deeply, finishing his glass off in one swift go. He snapped his fingers at his cup-bearer, a slip of a thing who hurried forward.

He decided to see what drunkenness could do to improve the situation. As he swallowed more wine, he realized he didn't know if he was drinking to celebrate the impending marriage, or to mourn the fierce slip of a girl he could never have.


	2. Chapter 2: Khaleefa

Chapter Two

"That's the third burnt vessel we've found in a week," Jordan said. He squinted more deeply than usual as he peered at her across the heavy wooden table that served as her command center in the Captain's cabin. "And this time, there were children."

Arya cursed, colorfully and long. She drove the tip of her blade deep into the wood of the table, adding to the scars across its surface. The solid wood was only lightly varnished, like most of the furniture in her quarters. She cared much more about function than form.

"Double the watches," she snapped, digging her knife out of the table and snapping it into the sheath she wore at her side. "And ready the skiff. I'm having a look."

"It's gruesome," Jordan cautioned. "Worse than the last."

"They've all been worse than the last." Arya stalked for the door and blinked fiercely as the light shifted from candles and sun through the leaded glass windows of her cabin, to the full sun of the Sunset Sea. She wondered how much longer she had before she went as squinty-eyed as her First Mate Jordan, and almost laughed as she wondered what her sister Sansa would say about it. Her tanned skin was a far cry from the pale cream she'd had growing up in Winterfell, and her shoulder length brown hair was streaked with sun, burnished red and gold. She wondered if any of her siblings would recognize her now.

John, she thought. He'd know her anywhere. She tamped down the intrusive thought that said he wasn't her brother. Family tree be damned; he'd always be the steady older brother who gave her Needle.

She sobered quickly. The burning vessel not far from her ship _Nymeria_ was nothing to laugh about. She smelled cooked meat, and knew it wasn't her dinner. They'd been dining on sunfish for weeks now, as they wove in and out of the small, sparsely-populated islands too far from Westeros to have names or locations on the map. They'd run out of wild pig, which seemed to be the only land animal in these parts besides a kind of plump bird, too large to be a pigeon but not quite as big as a chicken. And as the burned boats and bodies began to pile up, she'd been reluctant to allow hunting expeditions, and had been avoiding the few impoverished villages that dotted the island chain.

All pretense of work on her ship had stopped, as her crew gathered on the bow, gazing at the smoking heap of floating wood. "Wester, Aran, Chase, and Alyce," she barked. "With me." Her chosen crew jumped to follow her into the skiff, and within minutes they were rowing toward the burning boat.

She hesitated to call the structure they were approaching a vessel. This part of the world boasted curious crafts, unique to the impoverished tropical lands in which they found themselves. Part boat, part floating house, the vessels here featured a flat bottom, and had a single boxy cabin in the very middle of the craft. Large pontoons ran down each side of the boat, and the cabin was ringed with flat deck that rather reminded her of the wooden porches that ringed the courtyards of Winterfell. Rope and rigging and nets were typically scattered across the front part of the deck, gathering in piles around the single sturdy, square sail that most often stayed lowered. Locals here did not travel much further than the next island over, and typically only made the journey for what passed for trade here. _Nymeria_ had caused quite a stir when she appeared among the Islanders with the Direwolf masthead. Arya was still afraid the Islanders couldn't quite decide if they were gods or devils.

Most days Arya wasn't sure either.

Alyce, perhaps the best scout she had, motioned to Wester and passed him the oar. Alyce shifted closer to Arya and kept her voice low."You'll want to be careful, Captain," the scout cautioned. "I'm quite certain I saw movement."

"You sure?" Arya couldn't help but ask, but she knew the answer even before Alyce nodded her assent. Alyce had the eyes of an eagle.

"Yes, Captain. Quite sure."

Arya cursed softly. Cursing was one of the things she liked best about being a captain. No sailor worth their salt trusted a captain who didn't curse, so she did it often and well, and sometimes thought of how scandalized Sansa would be. Sometimes the thought of her sister made her smile. But mostly it made her miss Winterfell. Homesickness ran counter to successful exploring, however, so she tried to think of her sister, and of home, as little as possible.

"Bring her up softly, then," she told Wester, as they pulled along side the still smoking pile of wood. What had been the cabin had collapsed into a smoldering heap, and there were still burning holes in what had been the deck. Heaps of cloth and burnt flesh marked what had to be bodies. Some of those bodies were smaller than others, and the realization that they were, indeed, children, struck her right in the gut.

"Blades out," she cautioned her crew, as Chase brought the skiff up and tied it off. "Look sharp. Alyce saw movement. Aran and Alyce, stay here. That deck's not stable enough for all of us. "

They didn't question her. They didn't dare. Experience had taught them she brooked no nonsense. Every one of them except the two she'd marked fell into a line behind her, drawing blades of various lengths and temperaments. She herself had brought Needle, and it felt like home in her hand as she vaulted lightly onto the remains of the deck.

She had barely made it three paces onto to the deck, had barely had time to register her crew behind her, when one of the larger piles directly to her left moaned.

She swung Needle up in front of her and dropped into a crouch, waiting. Her crew, familiar with her protocols, froze behind her. The moan had been faint and short lived. When nothing else happened, she lowered Needle and approached the pile of burnt rags and flesh. A man, from what she could tell from the few patches of short hair that were left dotting a raw red scalp. The women here invariably had long hair done up in dozens of tiny braids decorated with shells and feathers. When he neither moved nor moaned again, she dropped down to her knees beside him. From the looks of him, whatever breath he had left was going to be short lived, and she wanted information.

The burned man must have felt her approach. He moaned again, and said something that sounded like, "Khaleefa." She sifted through the few words she'd managed to pick up of his native tongue, and couldn't match it to anything she knew. She'd discovered at a fairly young age she was quick with languages. No one among her crew could master a tongue as fast as her, and there were several crew members who were very quick indeed.

"Khaleefa," the man murmured again.

"Vasos asa?" she asked. It meant, roughly, _What happened here?_

"Khaleefa," the man said again, and he began to cough and sputter blood.

She motioned to Wester, who had a canteen. He dropped down beside her and tried to give the man water, but the burn victim batted it away.

That was when she noticed his fingers had been cut off. Her heart dropped. The other burned vessels had all contained corpses missing body parts - a coupe of fingers, maybe an ear or nose. But this man had every single finger removed. Through her horror she felt the quizzical part of her kick in. Why had he been treated so differently? What had gone on here?

"Vasos asa?" she asked again, more urgently, resisting the urge to shake him.

"Das gauda," he moaned, what was left of his voice a keening wail this time. "Das gauda! Das gauda! Khaleefa. Das gauda."

Arya knew the phrase he was repeating. She'd learned it one night on one of the islands, when the local chieftain had tried to give them his most prized possession to thank them for their help in saving his life: his daughter. _Das gauda_ meant _my daughter_. But why was the burned man repeating it?

"He's upset about his daughter," she told the crew. "See if we can find her. Give him a little peace."

It was Chase who answered her. "Nay, Captain. None of the children are girls. He's confused."

Arya snapped her head up at Chase's announcement. Then the man in front of her, after a wracking bloody cough and deep, rattling gasp, rolled onto his back and died.

Arya was no stranger to death, but this was one of the less pretty experiences she'd had. She took a deep breath and reached out and closed the one eyelid that remained on his burned face. Then she rose and beckoned to her crew.

"Back to the ship. We have some distance to make yet today."

As they filed back into the skiff, only Alyce, who was closer to her than the rest, dared ask. "What distance, my Captain?"

"We're going to find his daughter. She's not here. That means someone's taken her. The same people who are burning boats and killing Islanders, I'll bet Nymeria on it." Her crew settled around her in the skiff and began to row back to her ship, its Direwolf masthead a welcome landmark in an ocean that smelled of salt and burning bodies. "And I'll bet my portion of Cook's excellent sunfish stew that these monsters are called Khaleefa." She felt a feral grin settle across her features. "And I'm going to find them, and show them what happens to monsters who kidnap little girls from under my very nose."


End file.
